2023 HUNGARIAN SC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, November 1st – Saturday, November 4th
- Debrecen, Hungary
- SCM (25m)
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Day one of the 2023 Hungarian Short Course Championships saw one national record bite the dust on the men’s side to kick off the competition.
Racing in the 1500m freestyle in Debrecen, 20-year-old David Betlehem posted a new lifetime best of 14:23.27 en route to winning gold. He narrowly got to the wall ahead of runner-up Zalan Sarkany who settled for silver in 14:23.31 while Kristof Rasovszky rounded out the top 3 performers in 14:38.64.
As for Betlehem, his outing tonight overwrote the previous Hungarian standard of 14:28.36 Gergely Gyurta put on the books nearly a decade ago while competing at the 2014 World Cup in Singapore. His time this evening would have bagged the bronze at the 2021 European Short Course Championships.
Splits for Betlehem were as follows:
Betlehem is an accomplished athlete both in the pool and in open water. He was the 1500m free silver medalist at both the 2019 European Youth Olympic Festival as well as the 2021 European Junior Championships.
He helped the Hungarian open water team snag silver in the team relay both at the 2022 World Championships and 2023 World Championships.
In January of this year, Betlehem announced his verbal commitment to race for NC State next fall.
I’m very excited to see his 800, which is a stronger event for him. The 400 shapes out to be quite the competition as well, with Marton, Hollo, Sarkany, Rasovszky and Betlehem all in the final.
Bethlehem beat Sarkany by only 0.04 seconds. I see Zalan’s return to ASU as at least as big a college story as Bethlehem, who is signed up for NCState next year. See Olympic medalist Noe Ponti signed up with NC State and left after a few weeks to go back to Europe to train. Not that that will happen with Bethlehem, but Sarkany has already bit off that transition with success. Either/both will have a huge impact on NCAA results, along with Hafnaoui. Using the SwimSwam Swimulator tool, 14:28 SCM converts to about 14:18 SCY. Now-graduated Will Gallant won last year in 14:28. 94, with his teammate Ross Dant the top returner from that race in 14:30.34. Sarkany was 8th… Read more »
I believe Will Gallant has 1-2 yrs eligibility left if he chooses to use it after this year
These 3 distance champions train together – zalan David and kristof – 8-10km per session 80-100km per week. Hope they get real good when they come to the states but will they be doing OWS level yardage in America? That’s very fast from David
Are they all going to the US? I was only aware of David going to the US.
Nah not kristof but zalan has been and is going back at some point to the desert with bob
The dynamics will be interesting to see for all, I have no doubt as a collective they push the heck out of each other day in day out and soon to all be flying solo could impact all 3, I hope not negatively.
Betlehem with Diehl/Winkler is a crazy Big 3
Bethlehem still going to have his hands full with Hafnaoui which is a shame cause an athlete of David’s ability could be a standout distance swimmer in many other periods of time. Really excited to see what transpires with David’s swims throughout his NCAA, I am certainly a fan wishing him all the best.